In a conventional rock drilling process, drilling parameters are set manually by a skilled operator through directly manipulating the different main hydraulic control valves. Although experienced operators can be said to have some feel for when a rock drilling process is running effectively, there is much to be wished when it comes to total control over the drilling process in order to drill more efficient while taking account on how the equipment should be operated most effectively and still avoid excessive wear, overload, component failure etc.
In a more recent system there has been suggested to proceed so as to tune the system in the direction of optimizing of the drilling process in order to improve drilling quality. This is achieved through direct control of the operational parameters such as drill feed force, rotation speed and hammer power level. Various anti jamming functions are typically also used in the known control system in order to avoid unnecessary down times.
Such a control system can be a very complicated hydraulic system with highly customized valves, a complete electro-hydraulic system with some type of micro-controller and possible CAN (Controller Area Network) bus technology, or a combination of both to handle the complex logics. In particular, the control is undertaken through control signals for regulating the different main hydraulic control valves so as to control drill feed force, rotation speed, hammer power level etc.